Thomas McGuane's obsession with fish has taken him from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the fly-fisher's world. As he travels the fish take him to many and various subjects ripe for random speculation: rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family and memory - right down to why fishermen lie. The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

As adept as Thomas McGuane has been through the years with a rod in his hand, he's even more skillful with his pen. Join the two like tippet to leader, and the result's as irresistible as a Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear in the middle of a Hendrickson hatch.

For The Longest Silence, McGuane has trolled his inventory and assembled 33 essays written over three decades. Passionate, meditative, personal, and often very funny, they are filled with fellowship and connected by his love of angling. The title piece, a certified classic in the sporting genre, chronicles his quest for the elusive permit. Since permit is about the hardest fish to catch on a fly, the expected futility of not catching one hooks McGuane's introspection, and he weighs in with trophy prose: "What is emphatic in angling is made so by the long silences--the unproductive periods. For the ardent fisherman, progress is towards the kinds of fishing that are never productive in the sense of the blood riots of the hunting-and-fishing periodicals. Their illusions of continuous action evoke for him, finally, a condition of utter, mortuary boredom."

That's McGuane on angling in a nutshell; he knows the real action is internal. Whether he's casting for salmon in Russia ("Fly-Fishing the Evil Empire"), bonefish in the Florida Keys ("Close to the Bone"), or trout in Ireland ("Back in Ireland"), the catch is secondary to the pursuit, and the pursuit has as much to do with making sense of self and the universe as it does with anything aswim in a river. "When you get to the water you will be renewed," he assures. "Leave as much behind as possible. Those motives to screw your boss or employees, cheat on your spouse, rob the state, or humiliate your companions will not serve you well if you expect to be restored in the eyes of God, fish, and the river, which will reward you with hollow waste if you don't behave. You may be cursed. You may be shriven. You may be drowned. At the very least, you may snap off your fly in the bushes." McGuane clearly wades in with honest intentions; in The Longest Silence he casts cleanly to his target again and again. --Jeff Silverman

From the Inside Flap:

With ten books over a thirty-year span, Thomas McGuane has proven himself over and over again "a virtuoso . . . a writer of the first magnitude," as Jonathan Yardley wrote in the New York Times Book Review. "His sheer writing skill is nothing short of amazing." But he has devoted a couple decades more to another sustaining passion: the pursuit of most every sporting fish known to the angler's hopes and dreams.

The quarry--from trout and salmon to striped bass, massive tarpon, and chimerical permit--inhabit these thirty-three essays as surely as the characters of a novel, luring the author back to childhood haunts in Michigan and Rhode Island, and on through the stages of his life in San Francisco, Key West, and Montana; from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the American fishery, and to such far-flung locales as Ireland, Argentina, New Zealand, and Russia. As he travels with friends, with his son, alone, or in the literary company of Roderick Haig-Brown or Isaak Walton, the fish take him to such subjects as "unfounded opinions" on rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family, and memory--right down to why fisherman lie. "His essay subjects are the stuff of epics," Geoffrey Wolff has written, "and his narratives can make you laugh out loud."

Infused with a deep experience of wildlife and the outdoors, dedicated to conservation, reverent and hilarious by turns or at once, The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life.

Book Description Vintage Publishing, United Kingdom, 2001. Paperback. Book Condition: New. 196 x 128 mm. Language: English . Brand New Book. Thomas McGuane s obsession with fish has taken him from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the fly-fisher s world. As he travels the fish take him to many and various subjects ripe for random speculation: rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family and memory - right down to why fishermen lie. The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life. Bookseller Inventory # AB99780224061018

Book Description Vintage Publishing, United Kingdom, 2001. Paperback. Book Condition: New. 196 x 128 mm. Language: English . Brand New Book. Thomas McGuane s obsession with fish has taken him from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the fly-fisher s world. As he travels the fish take him to many and various subjects ripe for random speculation: rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family and memory - right down to why fishermen lie. The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life. Bookseller Inventory # AB99780224061018

Book Description Yellow Jersey. Book Condition: New. 2001. Paperback. From the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the fly-fisher's world, Thomas McGuane's obsession takes him to Ireland, Montana, Argentina, New Zealand and Russia. "The Longest Silence" shows what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life. Num Pages: 304 pages. BIC Classification: WSXF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 131 x 22. Weight in Grams: 222. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Bookseller Inventory # V9780224061018

Book Description 2001. Paperback. Book Condition: New. 129mm x 198mm x 20mm. Paperback. We'd all rather be fishing than doing anything else. But if you can't do it, then reading about it is the next best thing. The Longest Silence is one of the best fishing trips I've had thi.Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. 304 pages. 0.216. Bookseller Inventory # 9780224061018